Fool's Gold (The Wandering Engineer) (5 page)

“I
was hurt... in an accident,” Jorge continued his explanation. “Sergio here has
been flying and repairing the tug.”

“Obviously
no Wi-Fi,” he observed dryly. Proteus identified an ODN cable and placed a
carat over it on his HUD. He nodded. “Right. Go to it,” the Admiral replied
taking the indicated fiber optic line with his right hand. His nanite AI
automatically linked it to his network through his nanites while Defender threw
a firewall up.

“I'm
in. There is a lot of software damage and electronics out. Also some software
conflicts,” the Admiral reported out loud. Jorge grunted.

“Repairs
initiated Admiral. Diagnostic scan in progress. Error, viruses in the
navigational ram buffer. Sectors two hundred and twelve through twenty five
corrupted. Non essential data has over written the navigational suite and the
virus is a rabbit,” Sprite reported. He grunted.

“Let
me see...” he ordered. Sprite fed him an image. He sighed. “Looks like someone
overwrote your navigational software with porn. It was infested with a virus
which has corrupted some of your systems,” the Admiral reported, looking out at
Jorge and Junior. Jorge was glaring at his son. Junior was looking anywhere but
at his father. The Admiral tried not to laugh or sigh.

“Boys
will be boys I suppose. Idiots ruled by their hormones till they LEARN TO GROW
UP,” Jorge growled, holding his glare before returning his gaze to the Admiral.
He chuckled.

“That
they will sir, in any time period.” The Admiral smiled wearily.

“I've
backed up what I can and wiped the software suite, it's a total write off
Admiral. I am rebooting from the firmware now. Some of the drivers are
conflicting. Admiral, half the electronics are non functional. We need a full
rebuild to sort this out properly,” Sprite reported. He nodded.

“The
software has been dumped and I am reloading the drivers now, but the ones that
work conflict with one another. We need to do a complete rebuild to get it
right,” the Admiral reported.

“How
long?” Jorge replied, wary. “We need to get back into space before the rent
comes due.” He sighed.

The
Admiral nodded. “I will see what I can do.”

“List
all electronics detected, flag the ones in need of replacement. We'll replicate
those while we can,” he said softly to Proteus.

“Noted
Admiral.”

“Shall
we begin interior repairs?” the AI asked.

“No.”
He checked the flight logs Sprite had salvaged. “Someone hard wired the engine
for afterburner. The coolant system is toast,” he reported. Jorge groaned.

The
Admiral looked out again. The wounded man was trying to write with an
electronic pad. “I knew you did something stupid. Damn it! Why the hell
couldn't you listen?!” the patriarch snarled sounding despondent. The Admiral
un-jacked and climbed out of the cab making Jorge break off his rant.

Irons
checked the engine over, watching as Sprite and Proteus logged items to repair
or replace. He softly mentioned a few parts as well. The thruster was mangled,
it had been thoroughly patched, but the constant overload of the afterburner
had cooked the ceramic coating off and worn down the rim. It looked like something
had chewed on it. Plasma exhaust had a tendency of doing that when the
electromagnetic superconducting shields were out.

Jorge
was still trying to keep his cool. The teenager had given up being defiant and
assumed a submissive but resentful pose. The Admiral shook his head.

“Well,
she's definitely beat up pretty bad. We're looking at a lot of repairs. Almost
a complete rebuild from the frame up.” He shook his head. “I've got a partial
list to go off of, I'm cross checking it with the list of materials from the
junk pile...” He trailed off as Sprite took the hint and did the cross check.
She flashed a dozen items onto his HUD. “And it looks like eleven; no twelve
items may be compatible. Most are minor, broken valves, hoses, cracked spar,
shorted breakers... still twelve is okay out of a list of...” Junior looked up
with hope in his eyes. “Out of over three hundred and thirty one. It is sure to
go up from there. The plasma field injectors will need a rebuild, and if the
firing chamber is breached...” The Admiral finished with a shrug. The boy was
crestfallen again.

 “Mama
said to remind you breakfast is almost ready!” the pig tailed girl called from
the door. Jorge waved his crutch and she ran off.

“I
can get my replicator working on some of the electronics while we eat,” Irons
waved to Jorge. Jorge nodded. Irons climbed back into the cab and with
practiced efficiency his implants tore out most of the broken or damaged flight
controls. He handed them down to a dumb struck Junior.

“You’re
going to remake them?” The young man asked. “Like new?” He looked at one.
“What's wrong with this one?” He turned it over and over.

“Firmware
was corrupted by the rabbit virus. It needs a new chip and some minor repairs
to its UART optical jack,” the Admiral replied as he pulled the last board.

“Okay
that's it, let’s go.”

Junior
followed him as he led the way down the hall through the busy living quarters
and into his room. Junior looked around. “Don't get used to it.” He growled
softly. The Admiral ignored that as he set his load down on the floor then
pulled out his micro battery.

“What's
that?” the teen asked.

“Superconductor
battery. The replicator draws a higher voltage then the wall current can dish
out. So I have to use this to step up the power. I will recharge it later. I
have a micro fusion reactor to do that since you’re in a power crunch.” He
plugged the battery into the replicator then fed in each of the parts. He
jacked in and waved to the young man. “You can set them down here. I will get
to them in a bit.” He waved. The young man hesitated.

“Junior!
Wash up and eat! Your shift is in twenty minutes young man!” his mother called.
The young man hastily set the electronics down then rushed out of the room. The
Admiral chuckled softly. “You too Admiral!” He looked up with a grimace. It had
been fifteen months and nearly seven hundred and thirteen years since he had a
human keeper. It looked like Mrs. Valdez had chosen to adopt the role. He shook
his head.

“She's
got a point Admiral, you do need to refuel. Let the machine handle what it has.
It won’t work any faster with your brooding over it,” Sprite remonstrated. He
chuckled.

“All
right all right, two mother hens, what did I do to deserve this...” He sighed
getting up.

The
family split up to their various shifts after breakfast. The Admiral nodded as
he and Jorge were left alone. The kids, two were apparently relatives, a niece
and nephew of Mrs. Valdez's sister and her husband O'Reilly were taken off with
the pig tailed girl to school in the greenhouse. From what they said they were
going to spend the morning harvesting cabbage before doing basic math after
lunch.

Mrs.
Valdez had a bounce shift; she was trying to exchange it with someone else. She
cast worried glances to Jorge occasionally. They seemed to bounce off the
patriarch. He kissed her softly before she left.

“So
about this list...” Junior asked.

“I
uploaded it to your tablet.” Irons pointed to the tablet on the counter. Junior
looked at it.

“When
did you...” he started as he got up. He picked the tablet up and started to
scroll through the menu. “When...” He looked up.

“It
has Wi-Fi. So do I.” The Admiral smiled. “Do you folks have coffee?”

He
looked over to Jorge who shook his head. “We import it but it goes to the
engineers and luxury quarters. We can't get our hands on any.” He sighed.

“No
problem, I can fix the food replicator later.” The Admiral waved dismissively.
Junior mumbled as he read the list.

“I
think I can get a few of these before my shift...”

His
father shook his head holding out his hand. “I'll do that. You get to work.” He
waved. Junior frowned at the Admiral but then handed over the electronic device
and left.

“Yes,
yes, I see... most of these are minor parts. I think I can get to them while
you tear down the engine,” Jorge looked up after reading the list.

The
Admiral smiled. “I've got a part in the replicator, let me pull it and put
another in then we can get started.” He got up and put his dishes in the sink
with the others. “Dishwasher is down too?” he asked. Jorge nodded as he limped
out.

It
took most of the morning to pull the melted coolant system out to get to the
top of the engine. Most of the damage was in the port plasma field injector.
The starboard was fused, from the looks of it had been that way for some time.
He grunted as he looked over the damage. The ship must have pulled hard to
starboard. It would have taken a lot of piloting skill to keep it going in the
direction you wanted. His estimate of Sergio went up a little. But not much.

Jorge
came in occasionally, carrying a part and laying it out nearby. He had taken
his hand tools to the junk yard. The Admiral was glad, he didn't need them and
he had his own. Still, it might be a good idea to suggest they invest in a
second set of simple tools to leave in the junkyard.... He shook the thought
off.

He
was a guest, and he needed to focus on that and not impose. Though he did plan
on repairing some of the things in the household, for his own comfort at least.
No way was he going to go without coffee for long.

“That's
the last of them,” Jorge said. Irons looked up to see the man winded. “Let me
catch my breath and I'll lend you a hand,” the wounded man suggested. The
Admiral thought frantically as Sprite highlighted the man's temperature.

“I'm
about done right now, I was planning on taking a lunch break and putting a call
in to Io 11. Why don't I let you know what I did and then we can go eat?” he
suggested. Jorge grunted and nodded wearily. He let himself down onto his crate
stool with a shaky breath.

“Your
family is very hardy. You must have used suits to use this ship.” The Admiral
waved to the cab. “It can't hold pressure with the damage. The seals around the
door are gone too.” He shook his head.

Jorge
nodded. “Been that way since my great grandfather's time. Story goes that he
got out to lash a piece of cargo down and then got back in and the cockpit
breached. Luckily he managed to patch his suit into the life support or he
would have been dead before making station.” He waved the crutch and leaned
back with a sigh. “So how is the damage?” he asked looking like he knew the
answer.

“About
what I said before. Coolant system is gone. Most of the engine will need a
complete rebuild. I am going over the final tally now. I also checked the hull
and frame, there is some minor twist in the lateral arm, but she's sound.  I
can fix the frame damage and box or gusset the weak areas using scrap metal.
Cabin will need to be rebuilt or replaced though,” he waved.

“Rebuilt
if we can. I think we have a day before the Port Admiral... no offense... sends
his goons,” Jorge replied.

 “Sends
his goons?” The Admiral asked, cleaning a valve with a rag. Proteus reported it
was good he set it down in the salvage pile.

“Rent.”
Jorge sighed. “We have to pay rent. Space rent he calls it. Everyone has to pay
for the air they breathe, water, power, heat, food, and space they live in.
We've been the primary source of water since he pissed the Oort cloud colonies
off into boycotting us.” Jorge sighed wearily. “The exec, Enrique has been
leaning on us pretty hard till the Port Admiral sent his bully boys around. Now
he's trying to buy us time to get squared away,” he waved to the ship. “Fat
chance of that with the old girl all tore up and with her guts all over the
deck. Damn kid.” Jorge sighed shaking his head.

“I
should have never let him take her out; he's too green, too impulsive.” He
sighed again, smacking the end of the crutch down. “I should have ridden him
harder but I was laid up for a couple days with a fever.” He shook his head.

“Anita
traded a few things to get me some antibiotics.” He looked away then shook his
head.

“You
work double shifts on the station as well?” the Admiral asked.

“That's
for the food we eat and the some of the power we use. Everything else comes
from this old girl.” He waved to the tug. Irons nodded.

“Well,
let me go see what I can do about lunch and putting a call through to Io.” He
smiled. He knew better then to offer to help Jorge up. The man's pride and
dignity were something he clung to fiercely. The Admiral nodded. “Shall we?”
Jorge looked at him with a weary eye, and then chuckled as he wrestled himself
upright.

“I
think Anita left sandwiches in the cooler.” He waved the Admiral forward.

After
a quick lunch he jacked into the system and had Sprite put a call through the
station net to the Io11. He waited patiently after the communications officer,
Julia put him on hold. While he waited he pulled the holo emitter out and put
it on the table so Jorge could see and be a part of the discussion.